ESSAY

ESSAY; Appointment in Samarra

By William Safire

Published: January 26, 1989

A democratic nation, like a person with free will, has some control over its destiny. If it denies wrongdoing and flees from moral responsibility, that nation surrenders to Fate's retribution; but if its people are moved to root out corruption, that nation can overcome its past and shape its future.

In today's sermon, we take as our symbol the ancient city of Samarra, 70 miles from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Americans recall the name vaguely as part of the title of a fatalistic 1934 novel by John O'Hara, ''Appointment in Samarra.'' The old city has been in the news as the site of one of the factories built by West Germans to produce the poison gas used by the Iraqi dictator to murder 5,000 Kurdish men, women and children.

After the German Todeskramer finished their construction job in Samarra, countrymen of these merchants of death went on to another terrorist state, Libya. This time the death-dealing facility - built by a pri-vate German profiteer without conscience, on designs apparently provided by a company owned by the West German Government - was exposed on the front page of an American newspaper.

The official reaction in Bonn was panic-stricken arrogance. The Government did not know (but it did know); the evidence would not ''stand up in court'' (a legalistic smokescreen); it was all part of ''an anti-German campaign'' (xenophobia is the defense of scoundrels).

Even today, the official cover-up continues. Chancellor Kohl's official spokesman put out word that the new President of the United States, in his first call to the West German leader, ''regretted'' American commentary (meaning the diatribe in this space about ''Auschwitz-in-the-Sand''). Did President Bush indeed apologize for the outrage expressed here?

Of course not; according to the White House press secretary, President Bush said only that he was concerned that this not harm German-American relations. The deceptive Bonn propagandist, desperate for support, twisted that innocuous hope into an official regret that would have been both improper and craven. Fortunately for the Federal Republic, the official Kohl-Genscher Government reaction was not West Germany's reaction. After the initial shock, a free national press got to work. The magazine Stern led the way and dug up facts that forced a prosecutor in Offenburg to launch an investigation; he has raided the files of a dozen firms and appears to be on the ball.

Even Der Spiegel, whose publisher at first adopted the Kohl-Genscher line and castigated those who dared remind the world of past German poison gas guilt, has come around. The magazine forthrightly denounced those German businessmen who ''export at all costs to greater prosperity'' when ''tens of thousands of people pay for the exporters' prosperity with their lives.''

What is happening is a realistic re-direction of anger. No longer are messengers of truth damned as troublemakers; millions of free West German citizens see the source of the nation's new shame to be at home, its predations compounded by a see-no-evil officialdom. Many Germans still resent hectoring from abroad -that's understandable - but that no longer paralyzes a probe.

This sober second thought could be the best thing to happen in Central Europe since the end of World War II. National attention is not fixed on absolution from past sins, but on solution to present sins. If Germans take the lead in choking off death-dealing exports (especially involving missile technology, next in need of investigation) they will gain self-respect and win world respect.

The point is not to tempt Fate by running from responsibility. Germans are not inexorably fated to be villains; they can take a moral stand and wind up as heroes.

The title of John O'Hara's book was taken from an ancient tale recounted by Somerset Maugham and shortened here:

A young servant saw Death, dressed in a shroud, gesture toward him in the marketplace in Baghdad. The servant raced home, told his master of the frightening encounter, and pleaded ''Give me your fastest horse and I will flee to Samarra, where Death will not find me.''

The master, after letting the boy race to Samarra on his horse, went to the marketplace, saw Death in the corner and accosted him. ''My servant is young and healthy - why did you beckon to him?''

''I did not beckon,'' said Death. ''Mine was a gesture of surprise. I did not expect to see him this afternoon in Baghdad - because tonight, he and I have an appointment in Samarra.''